July 30, 2010
Contact: Alison Duffy, Public Affairs
508-856-2000
PublicAffairs@umassmed.edu

TWO UMMS SCIENTISTS HONORED BY AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR BIOCHEMISTRY AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY

The ASBMB honored Melissa Moore (left) with the 2011 William C. Rose Award, and Job Dekker (right) with the 2011 Young Investigator Award.

WORCESTER, Mass.—Two scientists at the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS) have been recognized by their peers at the prestigious American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) for outstanding research contributions and commitment to colleagues. Melissa J. Moore, PhD, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and professor of biochemistry & molecular pharmacology, will receive the 2011 William C. Rose Award, and Job Dekker, PhD, associate professor of biochemistry & molecular pharmacology and molecular medicine, will receive the 2011 Young Investigator Award; both will present featured lectures at the 2011 ASBMB annual meeting.

The William C. Rose Award recognizes outstanding contributions to biochemical and molecular biological research and a demonstrated commitment to the training of younger scientists, as epitomized by the late Dr. Rose, an authority on protein nutrition and former president of the ASBMB. Dr. Moore is widely recognized as a leader in RNA research and is a co-director of the RNA Therapeutics Institute at UMMS. She is a broad-ranging, problem-oriented scientist whose lab interests focus on RNA splicing.

“Melissa Moore is a paradigm for the Rose Award from the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology,” said C. Robert Matthews, PhD, the Arthur F. and Helen P. Koskinas Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology and chair and professor of biochemistry & molecular pharmacology. “She is an outstanding scientist, a caring mentor and a terrific colleague. When she perceives a need—from her students, her colleagues or her institution—she always steps forward to fill that need. It is also noteworthy that, since coming to the UMMS only three years ago, she has initiated and led several programs that will impact the development of translational research. She is a most deserving recipient of the Rose Award.”

The 2011 Young Investigator Award recognizes outstanding research contributions to biochemistry and molecular biology by an investigator with no more than 15 years of postdoctoral experience. Dr. Dekker is a member of the program in gene function and expression. He received both his BS (1993) and his PhD (1997) from the University of Utrecht, The Netherlands, and was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University from 1998 to 2003 before joining UMMS. Dekker’s research focuses on chromosome structure, and his early work involved developing a suite of extremely powerful molecular and biochemical methodologies to probe the three-dimensional structure of chromosomes at remarkably high resolution (called 3C, or Chromosome Conformation Capture). He has subsequently developed and refined a method of using deep sequencing that allows analysis of up to millions of chromosome interactions in parallel. His pioneering approach to molecular biology has garnered considerable recognition and awards, including selection as a W. M. Keck Foundation Distinguished Young Scholar in 2007.

“Job Dekker embodies all that one might expect in the next generation of leaders in science,” said Dr. Matthews. “Job sees the big picture, he is very creative, he is ambitious and he gets things done. His landmark paper in Science on chromosome structure represents the culmination of a multiyear effort to develop and apply his cross-linking technology to one of the outstanding problems in biology.”

“What makes Job special is that not only has his laboratory made seminal contributions, but he has also has pioneered the development of research tools that are widely used throughout the world by other scientists,” said Michael R. Green, MD, PhD, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, the Lambi and Sarah Adams Chair in Genetic Research and professor of molecular medicine and biochemistry & molecular pharmacology.


About the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
The ASBMB is a nonprofit scientific and educational organization with more than 12,000 members worldwide. Most members teach and conduct research at colleges and universities. Others conduct research in various government laboratories, at nonprofit research institutions and in industry. The Society’s student members attend undergraduate or graduate institutions. For more information about ASBMB, visit www.asbmb.org.


About the University of Massachusetts Medical School
The University of Massachusetts Medical School, one of the fastest growing academic health centers in the country, has built a reputation as a world-class research institution, consistently producing noteworthy advances in clinical and basic research. The Medical School attracts more than $240 million in research funding annually, 80 percent of which comes from federal funding sources. The mission of the Medical School is to advance the health and well-being of the people of the commonwealth and the world through pioneering education, research, public service and health care delivery with its clinical partner, UMass Memorial Health Care. For more information, visit www.umassmed.edu.